The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 308

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 308

Jeon Minji’s face brightened at my suggestion.

Did Yu Gyeonghun have some concerns that were difficult to discuss?

Perhaps sensing what this was about, Yu Gyeonghun quickly responded.

– That’s a good idea. Minji, leave the clinic to me and go to Busan. You can rest and learn various things from Dr. Han while you’re at it.

– Would that really be okay?

Of course, Jeon Minji seemed worried about leaving her post.

Since opening the clinic, neither of them had taken a long break. At most, they had taken a day off to come up to Daejeon recently.

Once you open a clinic, it becomes difficult to take extended breaks for a while.

Due to concerns that regular patients might visit other oriental medicine clinics during the break and end up settling there permanently, clinic directors who get married after opening often take short honeymoons.

But Seongsumullim Oriental Medicine Clinic has… well, isn’t there no substitute?

– I’ll announce that the era of demonic dominance has arrived, so don’t worry.

– Ugh!

– Why are you acting like this is new? You do fine when treating patients.

– There are many directors I’m meeting for the first time…

Who else in the world would think like Yu Gyeonghun and Jeon Minji, and actually dare to execute it?

They could do it because the couple worked together, but if they were alone, it would have been difficult to even attempt.

– Fighting! Thank you for sharing such a good treatment case, Director Jeon. It would be great if you could try the medicine and let us know the progress.

– To be able to learn beside Dr. Han! Could I also observe later if I use up my annual leave days?

Of course, the directors who newly joined from the Korean medicine hospital knew well about the Jeju branch and enthusiastically cheered for Jeon Minji.

“Of course.”

Today’s study session concluded like this.

Jeon Minji’s vacation schedule would be coordinated with Yu Gyeonghun and communicated later.

Since there were also reservations from overseas patients, it seemed difficult to depart within a day or two.

* * *

This maehyeokgi patient case wasn’t something to feel self-reproach about for missing.

I also broadened my thinking when Jeon Minji’s first prescription didn’t show much effect, and didn’t her first prescription at least help with the patient’s mental and physical stability?

In fact, it wasn’t really a failure, but she seemed to be struggling because the improvement wasn’t as much as expected while her confidence was significantly low.

Overestimating or underestimating one’s abilities at certain times is a common phenomenon in any field, but it’s not easy to overcome.

‘Was it called the Dunning-Kruger effect?’

When you first know a little, you’re actually overconfident.

At the peak of ignorance, you feel like you can treat all the patients in the world.

Then at some point you fall into a slump, entering the valley of despair where confidence drops like this.

To escape… you ultimately have to keep accumulating knowledge and experience while climbing the slope of enlightenment.

‘If only I could throw down a rope’

It’s not like I’ve climbed to the top of that slope either.

As someone making the same effort, wouldn’t it be good to help her get through it as painlessly as possible?

I thought hard about what to talk about until the day Jeon Minji was scheduled to come.

My experience? I called her because I didn’t want her to go through that hardship. Hwang Sanghun? Even now he’s not overflowing with confidence, which seems to just be his personality.

Lee Ahreum had been seeing patients well after we had a conversation during a company dinner last time.

‘Was there a similar student at the Medical Institute? What would Master have said?’

I had boldly told her to come, but no immediate solution came to mind.

I couldn’t even imagine Master giving kind advice to Medical Institute students.

– Go experience the battlefield. Then you won’t have time for useless worries.

He would definitely settle it simply like this… Ah.

He never helped Medical Institute students, but thinking of Master gave me a decent idea.

He had provided appropriate solutions to other concerns before.

* * *

A few days later, Jeon Minji arrived at Seongsuhan Oriental Medicine Clinic headquarters.

Unlike her appearance about 3 years ago when she was full of curiosity, she looked around with a considerably withdrawn posture.

“Dr. Lee~”

I deliberately called Jeon Minji on a Wednesday when Lee Ahreum was there and introduced them to each other.

“Director Jeon will be observing starting today. When I’m not here, please observe with either Dr. Lee or Dr. Hwang, whichever is more convenient. The clinic might feel awkward, so I’d appreciate it if you could help her well.”

Since they’re both women and similar in age, wouldn’t Lee Ahreum be more comfortable than Hwang Sanghun?

It would be nice if they became close, but there hadn’t really been an opportunity for them to talk.

When Jeon Minji observed our clinic right before opening, it was before Lee Ahreum joined, and when we met in Daejeon, there were too many people.

“Wow, nice to meet you! I’ve been wanting to meet you once, and I’m so happy you came! Let’s work well together!”

Lee Ahreum, with her outgoing personality, stepped forward to welcome Jeon Minji.

Come to think of it, is Lee Ahreum the youngest not just at headquarters but across all branches?

“I’ll be a bother, but thank you for calling me and welcoming me. I’ll learn a lot. Please take good care of me.”

Still, I should have her observe my treatments first.

Jeon Minji had prepared a separate gown like an intern would wear.

When seeing first-time patients, she stood at the back of the examination room, and when I was giving acupuncture, she followed me around.

She actively asked why I treated certain patients in particular ways.

She also asked about patients she had been treating.

“How is the maehyeokgi patient? Haven’t you had the follow-up consultation yet?”

“I prescribed Geumsuyukgunjeon with increased Sukjihwang. I was also curious about the progress, so I called separately asking her to come for acupuncture regularly.”

“I see. Does she come regularly? Does there seem to be some effect?”

“The dry cough stopped right away, and the phlegm and foreign sensation decreased a bit too. I told him to drink lots of water every time he came.”

“You did well. That’s fortunate.”

Upon hearing the praise, Jeon Minji smiled bashfully with embarrassment.

“Hehe, I’m not sure if things will be okay while I’m gone.”

“Director Yu Gyeonghun will take good care of things.”

“Cheonma says he’s scary and only looks for me. He said he’ll skip coming to the clinic during my vacation period.”

Huh? What’s there to be scared of?

It’s not like Yu Gyeonghun actually radiates the same intimidating presence as Cheonma.

At most, he just wears somewhat unusual clothes… no, wait…

“Did he receive treatment for globus sensation with the Martial Arts Alliance Leader concept?”

“Yes.”

Jeon Minji nodded matter-of-factly.

No way, he speaks normally during study sessions so I had completely forgotten.

On YouTube, of course it’s quite something, but there are all kinds of people there anyway, right?

For treatment… I thought he only adapted to that concept for people who occasionally wanted something special.

There’s a patient who wants that while seriously consulting about herbal medicine and taking medication for two months?

“I… see…”

Both the patient and Jeon Minji looked a bit different to me.

Even if someone asked me to do it, I wouldn’t be confident.

She seems timid, yet how does she do such things?

“Director, may I observe together as well?”

While I was in shock, Lee Ahreum knocked on the door.

Both she and I had just finished treating a group of patients who had been waiting in the morning and had a brief moment of free time.

Since I was about to call her anyway, I immediately pulled up a chair and offered her a seat.

“Good timing. I was just about to try something interesting.”

It would be better to have one more person rather than just doing it with Minji and me.

“Something interesting…?”

“Gasp, don’t tell me it’s a pop quiz?”

No way, would I call a test something interesting?

That’s how they taught us at school… that’s how they taught us. There was a professor at my alma mater who used to give surprise tests saying we’d do something fun every time.

“It’s not like a test. You just need to write freely.”

“…?”

“I’ll talk about hypothetical patients or patients I’ve seen before, and you write down on paper how you would plan to treat them.”

Lee Ahreum muttered for a moment that it might actually be a test, but it absolutely wasn’t.

The purpose isn’t to give grades.

“There are no right or wrong answers. There’s no correct answer to treatment in reality either. I just want to see if the three of us think in similar directions, or how different our approaches are.”

Several years ago, when I had fallen into the valley of despair, Master suggested this game.

It wasn’t particularly that my confidence in medical skills had declined… the problem was with martial arts.

I had trained with all my heart as instructed, but since I severely lacked practical experience, I wasn’t confident whether I could utilize the martial arts I had mastered when needed.

Wandering martial artists, needless to say, grow daily by risking their lives in the cruel martial arts world.

Even the relatively sheltered later-generation disciples of prestigious families go on martial journeys once they’re prepared.

But while I trained to protect my body and those around me, I couldn’t just leave the patients I was treating to go on a chivalrous journey, could I?

– My internal energy seems to have accumulated quite a bit, but I’m not sure if I could respond properly if I were ambushed.

To my concern, Master answered with sword discourse. He said he would teach me the ways of the Sapa.

Sword discourse is when martial artists who have reached a certain level share insights by verbally sparring about what techniques to use for attack and how to defend or evade.

At first, I thought it was just talk, but it turned out to be more useful than expected.

In our case, instead of speaking, we wrote on paper, and Master brought several outstanding Tang Family martial artists who had been on long martial journeys to pose problems.

– You’re walking down the street when you make eye contact with a man who has concealed his presence. What would you do?

[Kill him.]

[Stab his throat with a hidden weapon.]

[Kill him.]

[Kill him before he draws his sword.]

[If we made eye contact, he must have been watching me from the beginning. If I didn’t notice his presence, I might lose in a direct confrontation. I would attack first with the resolve to kill.]

And we wrote our answers simultaneously like this.

– Ooh!

– As expected of you all! You know your stuff!

– Divine Physician is excellent as well!

After that, the sword discourse continued about how enemies would evade attacks, counterattack, and so on.

Surprisingly, our answers matched perfectly.

It was like the situation in Romance of the Three Kingdoms where Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu simultaneously wrote down fire attack on paper, happening continuously.

Later, one of the martial artists under Master’s command actually recreated the same situation unexpectedly… but at that moment, it was just sword discourse.

The exhilaration of my thoughts matching perfectly with experienced martial artists was great, and I secretly gained confidence.

“Now, this is a patient who actually came the day before yesterday. A 14-year-old male, 166cm and 70kg. He’s a baseball player with no particular chief complaints, but he came hoping to boost his energy to improve his athletic performance. He gets sick easily while living in group settings and wants better immunity, and he’d like to grow taller than he is now. Since he weighs a lot and uses his body extensively, his joints often hurt, so he’d like help with that too. Let’s each write on paper how you would conduct the interview and determine the prescription direction.”

Applied to medicine, since the knowledge domain is much larger than martial arts, it would be more helpful.

Both martial combat and consultation require quick thinking, but in Minji’s case, just realizing that she possesses sufficient knowledge would be meaningful.

“Ah, this sounds interesting. I’ll write it down!”

Lee Ahreum answered excitedly and began writing.

Jeon Minji hesitated for a moment but described her thinking direction without much difficulty.

I also wrote down on paper the actual counseling I had conducted, just like the other two.

And after a moment.

The three of us simultaneously unfolded our papers and revealed our respective answers.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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